Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Character Profiles: Samus

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the latest entry in Nintendo's ongoing premier platform fighter series. It's also slated to be the company's biggest release of the holiday season. After almost 20 years of battle between top characters of some of gaming's biggest franchises, Ultimate will bring together every single fighter from every Smash Bros. game to date (along with a few more) in one single game.

With so many characters to choose from, Shacknews is taking a look at each and every one of the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate characters individually, leading up to the game's big release this Friday.

That's right, the game is out this Friday! Because many aspects of the game are subject to change, especially as people go hands-on with non-pirated copies of this game, these profiles should not be considered final and can be updated at any time. Any guide that has been updated will be clearly marked.

Here's what we have up so far:
#01 - Mario
#02 - Donkey Kong
#03 - Link
#06 - Kirby (Updated 9/8/18)
#07 - Fox
#08 - Pikachu
#15 - Ice Climbers
#17 - Zelda
#21 - Marth
#23 - Ganondorf
#31 - Snake
#32 - Ike
#33, #34, #35 - Pokemon Trainer
#38 - Sonic (Updated 9/3/18)
#46 - Mega Man
#49 - Little Mac
#61 - Cloud
#62 - Corrin
#64 - Inkling (Updated: 12/5/18)
#65 - Ridley

Today, we look at another member of Super Smash Bros.' original core eight.

Who is Samus?

When one thinks about galactic bounty hunters, the first name that comes to mind is Samus Aran. (Sorry, Master Chief.) Samus has been traveling the cosmos, fighting the Space Pirates, and taking on intergalactic threats for three decades. Even as Nintendo has been content to put her on the sidelines in favor of some of its more celebrates mascots, the gaming world hasn't forgotten Samus or the ground that she's broken. The older generation of players will remember playing Metroid for the first time and finding out at the end of the game that the person underneath the power armor is a woman, a plot twist that was unheard of in this time period.

Samus is getting ready to ride again in the upcoming Metroid Prime 4. But first, she's back for another round against the Super Smash Bros. roster and her arch-nemesis, Ridley.

Samus' Moves and Fighter Overview

Samus is a well-rounded combatant, with her power armor providing more projectiles than the average fighter. If you like to fight opponents from afar, pick up Samus and take her specials out for a spin.

Here are Samus' special moves:

• Charge Shot (Neutral B): Samus charges up the blaster on her arm and fires off a shot of varying power and size. A fully-charged shot will inflict massive damage and can KO opponents. The Smash Ultimate version of this move is improved, with Samus now able to charge on the move.
• Screw Attack (Up B): Samus will perform an electrically-charged somersault leap, which inflicts minor damage on any opponents she comes into contact with. This gets moderate recovery distance.
• Missile/Super Missile (Side B): Samus will randomly fire off one of her signature missiles. The standard Missile will home in on opponents, while her Super Missile will fire off in a straight line and inflict greater damage.
• Bombs (Down B): Samus goes into her Morph Ball form and drops bombs, which inflict minor damage.
• Zero Laser (Final Smash): Samus fires off a fully-powered laser that covers a full horizontal distance and KOs most opponents.

Samus is improved in several areas. Her aerials are slightly faster and she has a strong dash tackle that hits harder, albeit not necessarily faster. Her Smash attacks also hit harder and go off a bit quicker. Her specials have gotten better, too, with her Charge Shot getting added mobility and a faster charge.

The downside is that she wasn't much of a combo character coming in and she's less so now. With adjustments to knockback and lag, Samus' neutrals and dashing attacks don't combo so well into other moves. She'll rely on her standalone specials and Smash attacks more than she did before.

Echo Fighter Spotlight - Dark Samus

Dark Samus is mostly similar to her counterpart. The primary differences appear to be visual, with her focusing more on electric bursts, as opposed to Samus' flamethrower attacks.

Dark Samus appears to have slightly floatier movement than Samus, but she largely shares qualities with Samus. The differences aren't all skin deep, but for the moment, they do appear to be negligible.

Esports Observations

As has been the case recently, we turn to top Smash 4 player Gonzalo "ZeRo" Barrios. ZeRo has Samus as mediocre-to-bad. He takes a look at Samus' dash attack, which now strikes slower and has greater lag. He also notes that while Samus' projectiles are strong, they're not enough to carry her through a full battle, especially without a strong Down-Air.

Eric "ESAM" Lew has a vested interest when it comes to Samus, because she's been one of his mains for a long time. But he's not convinced that Samus is effective in Ultimate, largely because of her dash attack's current state and its inability to combo.

ESAM, however, is intrigued by the idea of Dark Samus. The idea of a normal roll has him feeling particularly good about this Echo Fighter counterpart.

But for a more frame-by-frame analysis of Dark Samus, we wrap up with Larry "LarryLurr" Holland. He breaks down each individual move in comparison with Samus and with Samus in Smash 4.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is set to arrive this Friday, December 7 on Nintendo Switch. It should be obvious by now that we won't get to everyone before the big release date, but we'll continue our analyses well beyond the game's release date. Look for this to continue as a daily feature for the next couple of weeks. Finally, for more top tips concerning Nintendo's latest Switch-based brawler, be sure to head over to Shacknews' Super Smash Bros. Ultimate walkthrough and guide.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?